Christopher Coen
Melissa Sogard
nancylee1
A refugee student, now in college in Tucson, is excelling in school after making the honor roll and graduating from high school with a GPA above 3.5. Hussein Magale said that his refugee resettlement agency did not enroll him in school right away, so he had to enroll in school by himself. He took 10 courses, including advanced placement classes, in his first and only semester of high school in the US. An Arizona Daily Wildcat article tells his story:
…Hussein Magale, who fled Somalia with his family in 1992 because of the country’s civil war, lived in the city’s camp for most of his life. The biochemistry sophomore, who speaks three languages, began translating for Doctors Without Borders, a humanitarian organization helping his camp, when he was a teenager…
…Magale said he always excelled in class and valued education because it was the only way out of the camp…
…To receive the Kenyan Certificate of Primary Education, or KCPE, Magale said he had to place in the top 100 out of more than 600 students in his group taking the high school entrance exam…He was number 23.
Magale said he continued to excel in high school until he arrived in Tucson in November 2009 through a United Nations resettlement program…
…Dualeh said the agency that brought him here did not enroll him in school right away. So Magale took the initiative, called around and filled out the paperwork. A few months after he left Kenya’s refugee camps, he was already taking classes at Catalina High School.
He took 10 courses, including advanced placement classes, in his first and only semester of high school in the U.S. He made the honor roll and graduated with
a GPA above 3.5……Magale’s GPA is still well above a 3.5, he’s part of the Arizona Assurance Scholars Club, captain of a soccer team… Read more here
